Upstate Idea Province

I haven't been posting on this blog lately because I've been in Idea Province mode, barely venturing outside of my head to observe my environment.

I even brought one of my ideas to life, a cardinal sin on Idea Province, detailing how to be a scab writer during the strike. It's not actually about how to scab. I only linked to the article that way just now because people erroneously use those search terms to find out how they can take advantage of the writer's strike. What they should be looking for are non-signatory production companies.

So even though I haven't been thinking about New York very much, I have at least had a few New York related Idea Provinces, which I might as well put here.

Take a Photo of Every Work of Art at Moma and Put All The Photos on a Web Site

Since you can take a photo of almost every display at Moma, one person with a camera could capture and display almost the entire museum digitally. If a photo of every Moma work were on the web, art-lovers would never need to get up and go to Moma and pay an arm and a leg again, at least until the exhibits changed. I would recommend this for The Met as well, but since that is pay what you wish, it's basically free already anyway.   

A Ghost Car For Determining How Many Pedestrians Won't Budge for an Approaching Car With the Right-of-Way

New York City pedestrians are known for crossing the street against the light, even when it's "not safe" (a car is coming straight for them). It usually turns out to be safe, since New York drivers are resigned to these carefree Don't Walk-walkers.

But I've seen so many close calls where the pedestrians weren't even nervous that I have to think New York pedestrians may be a little suicidal.

To find out just how suicidal, my idea is a self-driving holographic ghost car that appears to be solid, even though if it touches you, it can only go through you.

This car would obey all the traffic laws, except it would not stop for pedestrians who are crossing illegally. It would then clock how many pedestrians it "hits"/goes through, taking note of demographics - old woman, baby in a carriage (I've seen plenty of parents pull the baby carriage trick, cheerfully pushing their child into traffic because they assume nobody wants to kill a baby), entire family, runaway street urchin, punk teenager, tourists, and so on.

This way we'll get a better sense of who wants to die, who is arrogant, and who just followed the crowd and forgot to look.

Will New Yorkers dodge death from a car that has the right-of-way? Or is crossing against the light and oncoming traffic so vital a New York City value that they are willing to die for it?

Or are all New Yorkers simply ready to die, period? They have already seen everything and more, after all.

Taxi-Disguised Undercover Ambulances, Fire Trucks and Subway Trains

In Manhattan there are police cars disguised as Taxi cabs. Sometimes you'll see these taxis driving around with sirens wailing and flashing red and blue lights. So I thought it would be cool to have undercover ambulances and undercover fire trucks disguised as Yellow Cabs too.

If I had the patience, I would design the prototypes and post them here. Just think about a fire truck painted yellow with black lettering and you have the idea.

Re-Unify the Boroughs

As you can see in this map, the five New York City boroughs look like they could have been all connected like a mini-Pangea once:

Again, if I had the patience, I would do the simple photo editing it would require to shove these boroughs together, but this is a quasi-Idea Province, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Just shove Queens and Brooklyn to the left until it connects with Manhattan and the Bronx, move Staten Island to the Upper Right until it clicks onto Manhattan and Brooklyn, and move Manhattan slightly up to and to the right so that it links to Brooklyn and The Bronx. Then you have an entirely unified New York city with a few small streams to hop over where the borough pieces don't fit perfectly.

Besides sinking Roosevelt Island, exploding all the bridges and killing countless people, I wonder how this would affect the New York experience. Would Manhattan's high rises and business districts spill over into the currently more neighborhood-y Brooklyn and Queens? Would lonely lowly suburban Staten Island transform into a legitimate area, as the natural locale for an extended Wall Street? What would The Bronx have to say about all this?

Would New York City become an ultra-dense multi-borough megalopolis with no reason for anyone to prefer Manhattan to East Queens? Would Manhattanites and Brooklyn-dwellers finally become equal?

Another way this could play out is Manhattan would stop worrying so much about density, since it could expand so easily into the other boroughs and New York State, and fall victim to Los Angeles style sprawl.

Either way, it would be an improvement, that's for sure.

Raze Central Park and Make Another Airport

Speaking of maps of New York, look at what a perfect rectangle Central Park is. I've always thought it would be great if the Mayor chopped down Central Park and converted it into an airport. No more LaGuardia delays. No more taxi to JFK nightmares. Just fly right into Manhattan. It's not like Central Park is an actual jungle with rare wildlife and indigenous people. It's a friggin' park, who could complain? Call it Central Park Airport in case anyone wants to be nostalgic.

Comments

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[Ajlouny]

Those professional pedestrians think their invincible when crossing the street. But should they see the alarmingly high statistics of pedestrian injury or death they may take less chances.

[Jocelyn]

The ghost car is a delightful idea. I wouldn't mind having ghost-pedestrians (...or maybe that should just be "ghosts"?) as well to see who drivers are more inclined to slow down for. Maybe if you're a young white guy in a suit, taxi drivers speed up a little.

And hell, as a little side venture, maybe some ghosts of ridiculously hot chicks who somehow provide positive re-enforcement to old dudes yelling out naughty things to them...like maybe the hot ghosts smile and wink or something. As I would not advise flesh-and-blood hot chicks to do this, this would allow sociologists to observe how a gentleman on the sidewalk reacts when a young woman he just informed "Ooooooyeeee, lemme watch that ass walk away girl" actually responds with encouragement. As opposed to her middle finger.